Napa Valley, 1978

photo by Wim Wenders 

The Sopranos - "Walk Like A Man"

Thinking about Christopher re-planting that small tree in the front yard.

Wednesday night soundtrack

on the errant path karen dalton/tim hardin

On the eve before the Oscars

when Rami Malek receives Best Actor for having terrific wigs & protruding, prosthetic teeth (while Ethan Hawke watches on a television)

Her Smell / Dragged Across Concrete

two trailers on the same day for american films I really want to see in 2019. the year all builds to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Logging: True Detective Season 3 Episode 2

Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye
"You ever been some place you couldn't leave, and you couldn't stay. Both at the same time."

a hole so far down (no way out)

winter (destroyer)

Office Space 20th Anniversary

Note to self: Never bring up the holocaust on a date, it can only go bad.

And Twiggy is pretty cute!

True Detective Season 3

Finally watched first episode tonight. Well-crafted,  tense and unsettling, in a set-up we've seen countless times. Beyond my expectations. I'll keep watching.

Miller's Crossing (1990)

They don't make trailers like this anymore.

Logging: Russian Doll

went down the wormhole of RUSSIAN DOLL over the course of two evenings. somewhere deep down i remember the old adage that all the great stories boil down to the core feeling/idea of loneliness. of that basic human need to find & share with another person(s) who truly understands you.

Midnight (New Beverly Cinema)

(twenty-five years this october, old orchard theater for a saturday matinee)

Double Feature: The French Connection / Taxi Driver

on TCM (midnight est)

#giddyup

(update: while watching. my dad connected liked the french connection. never even saw taxi driver. five year difference, 71...76)

Tomorrow Never Knows

listen to the color of your dream. of the beginning (on a loop)

Monet (in his gardens)

Hero (also, me at parties)

Dylan, "We are the World"

The River (MSG 9.22.79)

"For my brother-in-law and sister." (debut performance)

Prove It All Night
Badlands
The Promised Land
The River

Inherent Vice (90 percent close-ups)

Journey Through the Past

Shawshank (behind-the-scenes)

Roger Deakins at work 

Logging: Isle of Dogs

Wes Anderson knows & loves dogs. Their distinct expressions, and personalities. (maybe more than people)

It's a nice little art piece (moreso than a fully captivating film) to add to the Wes museum.

Coming in from the Cold (Midwest)

Atlantic City (Artist: Gerard Huerta, 1980)

Roma (behind-the-scenes)

ASC article. Tracking shot from the beach into the ocean and back was built on a wooden pier and used a Technocrane. Ahh (thumbs up).

Logging: The Mars Room (finished)

by Rachel Kushner

Slow burn new fiction from 2018. Tears you up a little. It will last.

Split (dir. M. Night Shyamalan)

Not as holyfuckingshit as I was hoping. Treaded water almost the whole time. Then the end came and went quickly.

Shyamalan can definitely direct. Nearly all his films have a tension, strangeness in their existence. He knows where to put the camera.

Happy 99th Fellini

"There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the passion of life."

Tarkovsky (Polaroids)

Talking Boogie Nights

I saw the Valley the way David Lean saw the desert in LAWRENCE OF ARABIA
-- Paul Thomas Anderson

Destroyer

Karyn Kusama is badass

Update:
Top 10 films from Criterion

Another Peckinpah Quote

"I'm nothing if not a romantic and I've got this weakness for losers on a grand scale, as well as a kind of sneaky affection for all the misfits and drifters in the world."

Logging : Atlanta

Season 2, Episode 10 "FUBU"

Full of pathos.

(Glover's (90s) version of Louie's (70s) school day remembrances)

VICE (dir. Adam McKay)

Shapeless. Vomit writing. Empty storytelling.

On the nose agenda with an in your face, all on the surface style. No interest at all in exploring behavior, psychology, relationships, and the grays of life.

Who is the audience for this jerk-off fest? Other than McKay and his Hollywood friends who love to pat themselves on the back and believe that this $60 million garbage is a deep revelation for everyone  else.

The Continuing Saga of Louis C.K.

"I like to jerk off, and I don't like being alone."

New Orleans Jazz Fest 50th

Thoughts on ROMA from Guillermo

I love hearing him talk cinema (more than any of his own films). Enthusiasm in contagious.

Bird Box (dir. Susanne Bier)

Took me the course of three nights to get to the end. Probably would've been better served as mini-series, way too long, shot like a tv movie, yet storylines crammed in and unanswered. Watchable (I guess)?? Wish it was truly holyfuckingshit like M. Night Shamylan's The Happening.

Sunday Snow

morning magic music (Halicarnassus by Circles Around the Sound)

One Week Ago (Sunday night) (Post-Game Bears/Eagles)

Michael Mann -- Thief/Chicago/L.A.

Chantix

Hereditary (dir. Ari Aster)

One of the more affecting, dark and unpleasant experiences at the cinema this past year. Can't get rid of it. It remains and doesn't disappear.

"When it came to make feature directorial debut, filmmaker Ari Aster knew that he wanted to make a film that took suffering seriously, to make something that served as a meditation on grief. Specifically, he wanted to examine how that type of trauma can have a corrosive effect on the entire family unit. The problem for Aster was that, while there are plenty of American films about the messy side of loss, in many of those features, characters ultimately end up stronger, their familial bonds tighter, for having navigated their way through adversity.

That's not what he wanted to make, however.

'There's nothing inherently false about that, we need hope to get out of bed in the morning, but there are some people who don't recover from certain blows - sometimes people go down with the people that they are closest to, said Aster.

I wanted to make a film about that, but if I did make that as a bleak drama that ends on something of a hopeless note, first good luck finding the financing - and then if I do find the financing, I'm not going to have the resources that I had for this film - but then good luck finding an audience for it.' "

Atlantis (behind the scenes)

ASC Cinematography of the 20th Century

The King

Soderbergh's Annual Seen/Read 2018 List

http://extension765.com/soderblogh/33-seen-read-2018

Monday

It’s like waking from a bad dream. But realizing it wasn’t a dream at all. It really happened. And there's nothing you can do. I’ve watched the replay of the kick, and each time I think it’s going to hit the post and go in! Fandom is completely irrational. Onwards!

Dinner at Leo's

savannah. early january, 2014.
(a dream)

Day 7

NFC Playoff: Bears/Eagles @ Soldier Field

Parkey.

It was written.

NFL Wildcard Weekend

On the eve of the Bears/Eagles at Soldier Field, I'm reminded of Dec 31st, 1988.
Final score: Bears 20, Eagles 12.

Death From Above (Duvall 88th)

Logging: Atlanta

Season 2, Episode 1 "Alligator Man"

Only Lovers Left Alive (Best of the Decade, 2010-2019)

Dir. Jim Jarmusch, 2014
the cinema of cool/atmosphere

Errant Path w/ Jonathan Fishman (jan 2nd)

Wednesday night listening:
Abner Jay - I'm So Depressed
Bob Marley & the Wailers - Coming in from the Cold
Chet Baker - Everything Happens to Me
B.B. King - See That My Grave is Kept Clean (One Kind Favor Bonus Track Version)
Wes Montgomery - Besame Mucho
Bobby Darin - Beyond the Sea
Jimmy Smith - Sagg' Shooting his Arrow (Root Down Jimmy Smith Live)
Chet Baker - It Could Happen to You

Day 1

Unforgiven (New Year's Day)

Woke up in a half-panic and a clear realization that UNFORGIVEN (dir. Eastwood, ‘91) is so much about addiction and the unrelenting struggle to forgive yourself. Wow, it’s 2019. #cinema #rebirth

Heat (1995)

Of note: the bookends of the close-up on Val Kilmer before the first shot fired, and the close-up on Al Pacino after the last shot fired.

Long Read

The Gambler who Cracked the Horse-Racing Code by Kit Chellel

finishing up 2018 like

One More Saturday Silent Night aka (A Tom Waits Xmas)

Charles Schultz (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas)

A Charlie Brown Christmas' completing the trilogy of Halloween, Thanksgiving. There's such a simple truth, melancholy with Charles Schultz's work that I've only realized this year.

"What's going on here?!?!

"Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown."

1920s

A Long Strange Trip (Best of the Decade, 2010-19)

At Red Rocks, with my brother. From rainbows to black muddy rivers.

The Hateful Eight (Best of the Decade, 2010-2019)

Georgia (dir. Ulu Grosbard, 1995)

Blaze, Inside Llewyn Davis, A Star is Born

Dark Star/Bertha (Oakland)

On a monday night. or early 1/1/82 around 3am.

The Deuce (Best of the Decade, 2010-2019)

Maggie Gyllenhaal's discovery.

Springsteen on Broadway, Netflix, NPR, etc.

Lady Bird (Best of the Decade, 2010-2019)

Insert the scene where Ladybird aka Christine is picked up on her way to the prom. "Are you really gonna go with them?" "Yes, I think I am."

In the car "Crash Into Me" by Dave Matthews Band comes on the radio.

Horace & Pete (Best of the Decade, 2010-2019)

On a Saturday night, a Sunday night scene about online dating and falling. 

25th anniversary *December 7th release*

Edens Theater. (music: exodus by wojciech kilar)

Crush

 in hibernation. And it's been re-awakened. #YoLaTango #SharonVanEtten #Ramones

 

Roxy 75 (Going Back)

"Ladies and Gentlemen, Bruce Springsteen & the E-Street Band."  

Opening with Thunder Road (solo piano) > Tenth-Avenue Freeze Out

Encore: Going Back. Played all 5 nights at the Roxy. And never played again. #Hobo-era #70s #LA

Thunder Road (1958)

Mood (on a friday night in december)

(i slipped on some stairs carrying my dog) bruce played this five straight night in LA 75. never played it again.

In Hiding

Shame, art, and hope in 2018 for my particular age group.

https://www.thecut.com/2018/11/im-broke-and-friendless-and-ive-wasted-my-whole-life.html?fbclid=IwAR3Eo3rjhV1lwgouxRrOokyYCcu4HdwWRL1KSp-rZ6-0eUvZg9HFt0I1NS8

A Star Is Born (Again)

A Star Is Born

Smoke Break (Mayor & Bozo)

Circumcision (Pollock, 1946)

Exodus (Wojciech Kilar, 1981)

Mara/Phoenix

Roger Ebert (on Tree Of Life)

Many films diminish us. They cheapen us, masturbate our senses, hammer us with shabby thrills, diminish the value of life. Some few films evoke the wonderment of life's experience, and those I consider a form of prayer. Not prayer "to" anyone or anything, but prayer "about" everyone and everything. I believe prayer that makes requests is pointless. What will be, will be. But I value the kind of prayer when you stand at the edge of the sea, or beneath a tree, or smell a flower, or love someone, or do a good thing. Those prayers validate existence and snatch it away from meaningless routine.

Boat Landing, Dinnard (Maurice Prendergast, 1914)

NYC Underground 80s

Lady Bird by Jason Polan

Inspired by Malika Favre

Inspired by Takashi Murakami